


good for goodness

by weatheredlaw



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Character Study, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Multi, Parent Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-09 21:58:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18925813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: "Everything changes," Wash says. "It's the one thing we can't stop from happening."or: Caboose needs a haircut, but that's not really what this is about.





	good for goodness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melxncholly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melxncholly/gifts).



> this fic exists within the universe of my story [_have you tried feeling happier?_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15495423/chapters/35971809), which is a canon divergent story that steps around season 16 and takes place directly after season 15. you don't have to read it to get this, but caboose's backstory is detailed a bit in both of these. for queentabris on tumblr, who posted art of wash cutting caboose's hair, and then i completely lost it.

“Okay, you know what? I can’t take it anymore.” Tucker gets up, crosses the room to Caboose, and kneels down in front of him. “You need a haircut, dude.”

Caboose looks at Tucker and frowns. _That_ , he thinks, _is rude._ “I don’t,” he says, even as he pushes the hair from his forehead. “I have a tie.” He pulls one from his pocket, a rubber band he found somewhere, and quickly wraps it around a chunk of hair. “See?”

“You look ridiculous.”

From across the room, Donut says, “I think it looks nice!”

“See?” Caboose leans back in his chair and grins. “I look _nice._ ”

Tucker rolls his eyes. “Whatever, dude.” He leaves the two of them and heads into the kitchen.

Donut comes over and inspects Caboose’s handiwork. “You know, it _does_ look good, but Tucker might be right. Maybe just a trim? I could do it—”

“No.” Caboose stands quickly, moving away from him.

“Um—”

“I’ll do it,” Tucker says. He’s digging into a bag of trail mix, picking out the candy and popping it into his mouth. “I cut my own hair.”

“I don’t _want_ to,” Caboose says. “I said no.”

Tucker raises a hand. “Alright, man, take it easy—”

“I _am_ taking it easy. But _some people_ are being very annoying, and I don’t _want_ to cut my hair.”

Donut makes a move to pat his arm, but Caboose jerks away from him, scowling at the two of them.

Tucker sighs. “Caboose, can we not—”

“ _Don’t_ tell me what to do,” he says, and marches outside.

* * *

Caboose _hates_ a lot of things. He hates that Church is gone. He hates not being able to sleep at night. And he _hates_ when people talk about him like he’s _not there._

For three days, Tucker, Donut, and everyone else seems to think it’s their business whether or not he cuts his hair. Maybe it’s because some of them are going a little stir-crazy on Iris. Sarge has built, taken apart, and rebuilt a dozen things already. Caboose enjoys watching him work and handing him the proper tools, but now even _he’s_ gotten in on the talk, suggesting he give Caboose a traditional military buzz, even though Sarge hasn’t worn his own hair like that in years.

“Get rid of those _hippie curls._ ”

“They are _not_ hippie curls. They are my _mom’s_ curls. She said so.”

Carolina raises her hand. “I’ll cut it.”

“You will not,” Tucker says. “Have you seen your own bangs lately?”

Carolina rounds on him. “Are you saying I’m bad at cutting my hair?”

“At the risk of injury and possible death, yes. That’s _exactly_ what I’m saying.”

Caboose gets up from the table, angry and frustrated. No one _listens_ to him, no one wants to hear what he has to say.

No one cares.

He can’t say with any certainty that Church would have been much different. Church had only cut his hair a few times, and that was after a lot of convincing. But this isn’t really about Church. And it isn’t about his hair, either. It’s about...it’s _about_ —

“Hey, Caboose.”

He turns. He’s wandered outside and it’s dark. The stars here are strange, and the nights are cold. Wash is sitting outside in a camping chair, drinking a beer. He’s starting to grow a bear, which Caboose thinks makes him look younger. It obscures the gauntness of his cheeks, which has started to really age him over the last couple of years.

“Hi, Wash.”

“You okay?” Caboose shrugs. “Tucker says you’ve been kind of cranky.”

“Tucker should mind his own business,” Caboose mutters, and sits down beside Wash’s chair.

“Yeah, maybe he should.” He leans down and takes a beer from the cooler at his feet and passes one to Caboose. “You like it here?”

“It’s fine.” Caboose pops the tab and takes a drink. He doesn’t do a lot of drinking, but having a beer with Wash outside, under the stars...it’s kind of nice. It’s what he had always imagined himself doing as he got older, before everything changed. And Wash is so _relaxed._ He’s been so quiet and happy. Caboose wonders how long this will last.

When it comes to them and stillness, it’s never for very long.

“I could cut your hair if you’d like,” Wash says quietly, glancing at him.

Caboose grips the can, _hard._ “I do _not_ want that.”

“Did Church ever do it?”

“This _isn’t_ about _Church,_ ” he says, and gets up. Angrily, he throws his can as far away as possible. It goes sailing and smashes against a rock. Wash looks at him sharply. “Not everything is about _Church._ ”

“Caboose, that’s enough.”

“No,” he says. “It’s not. You’re not _any better_ than _anyone else_. You’re not _listening_.”

Wash’s expression softens, and he stands. “Then help me understand. I want to understand.”

“You don’t. You couldn’t. I’m going to bed.” Caboose turns and leaves him there, going back inside and past everyone bickering in the kitchen. He slams his bedroom door behind him and locks it, for good measure, before he sinks to the floor.

This place is so empty. This place is so strange.

Now, more than ever, he just wants to go _home._

 

* * *

 

**some time ago**

“Alright, _mijo_. You ready?”

“Yes, mama.” Caboose leans back in his chair and closes his eyes. What he wants is to press his ear against his mother’s belly, and listen for his new sisters swimming around inside. Twins, they told him, and he was excited.

She laughs and starts measuring out his curls, trimming them here and there. “You have your mama’s curls, _mijo_ , did you know that?”

“Papa says that.”

“Well, he’s right.” She keeps trimming, humming to him as she does, until she’s satisfied with the length. “There you go. Very handsome, don’t you think, Marie?”

Marie looks up from her book and shrugs. “It’s fine.”

His mother sighs. “You two go outside.”

“Mama, I’m _reading._ ”

“Well, you can read outside. I’m going to go lie down.” She kisses Marie on the forehead and ushers her away from the table. “Go show off your new haircuts.”

Marie rolls her eyes and tucks her book under her arm. “Fine. Come on, Miguel. Let’s go.”

Caboose nods and runs ahead of her, out the door of their little prefab and into the light of the false sun that hovers above them. He runs a hand through his hair, feeling light and cool. Marie plops down in the grass of their yard and Caboose stretches out next to her.

“Will you read to me?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“Miguel, leave me alone.”

“ _Please?_ ”

She sighs, looking at him over her glasses and trying not to smile.

“You’re a monster, you know that?”

Caboose grins and rolls onto his belly, closing his eyes as she starts to read.

 

* * *

 

No matter what, Wash keeps finding him.

“Please go away.”

“If you need to talk about Church—”

“I _don’t._ ”

Wash sighs. “We all lost someone, Caboose. Church was important to us all—”

“I already _told you_ ,” he says. “It’s _not about Church._ ” He’s sitting on a hill overlooking the ocean that stretches out and away from their new home. He should go down to the beach. Grif says this ocean is nothing like the oceans on earth, the one surrounding his home. He misses it, Caboose can tell.

Caboose leans forward and tugs on the hair covering his eyes.

Wash sits next to him. “...Is it about something else?” Caboose says nothing. “...Some _one_ else?”

Caboose closes his eyes. “...No.”

Wash sighs. “Alright. I’ll leave you alone. I’m sorry for pushing you. I won’t anymore.” He gets up and walks away. Caboose turns and watches him go, hugging his knees close to his chest. There is a dull, _terrible_ ache in his chest, and even though he is surrounded by his friends, he feels very lonely.

 

* * *

 

**some time ago**

Caboose has known Owen all his life. They’ve gone to school together, played baseball together, and now they _are_ together, in the throes of love. Caboose is glad for the distraction — his dad is sick, people have been slowly leaving the colony over the past year, and he’s been feeling...restless. Owen is good to have around.

They spend a lot of time in Caboose’s backyard, watching the fake stars splashed against the colony dome move across the false sky.

Owen puts his hand in Caboose’s and says, “You’re my best friend, and I love you.”

Caboose turns to him. “My mom says that’s the luckiest thing to be.”

Owen laughs. “Yeah, I think it is.”

They make a lot of big promises. They’re sixteen and it feels like all of this could go on forever. Caboose asks Owen if they could keep on like this for the rest of their lives and Owen says yes. Owen asks if they could stay like this, under the stars, every night until they are too old to go outside and Caboose says yes. Yes _of course_ they can.

And then Owen is standing outside, his hand on the mailbox, and every part of him is shaking.

“I know we said forever—”

Caboose shakes his head. “Don’t say it.”

“My dad says it’s time to go. He says we have to leave.”

“Please take it back. Please don’t say it.”

“I’m so sorry. Caboose, I’m _so sorry_ —”

Caboose gathers him up in his arms. He has been bigger and taller than everyone for years now, and Owen is no exception. He holds him and they shake apart against one another, under fake stars in a fake sky.

“I have to go.” Owen pulls away.

“I don’t want that.”

“I’m sorry. I love you, I have to go.” Owen steps back, and Caboose…lets him go.

This was inevitable.

All things end.

 

* * *

 

Church left him a message.

Caboose has no idea what it says, no idea how long it is or what it really means, because he hasn’t listened to it. Frankly, he’s a little impressed with himself. He figured he’d have broken down by now.

He wonders what kind of messages Church left for the others. He left a message for all of them, and that _matters_ , but he wonders what kind of message he left for Tucker. For Wash.

For Carolina, for his sister.

She is...a wall. Caboose considers her a lot. What she is, what she was. As Wash grows a beard, Carolina is growing out her hair. She _is_ pretty bad at cutting, Caboose thinks, but she doesn't seem to care. She grows it and grows it, then chops off her bangs and practices her meditations on the beach. Caboose doesn’t want to bother her while she does it, so he tries to swim far away from her.

One afternoon, he comes up from a long time beneath the waves and she is treading next to him.

Caboose wipes the water from his face. “Hi.”

“You were scaring me,” she says. “How long can you hold your breath?”

Caboose shrugs, then lets himself buoy up, closing his eyes. Carolina does the same, floating next to him. He starts feeling tense, like she might start asking questions, but...she never does.

One of her hands drifts toward his and she hooks their pinky fingers together.

“It’s nice here,” she says. “Even if it’s a little lonely.”

Caboose nods, and they lay like that together for a while, until the light starts to dim, and they hear Donut calling for them along the cliffs.

 

* * *

 

**some time ago**

This was...supposed to be fun.

Caboose rolls over and puts a hand on Lizzie’s shoulder. It is bare and brown and freckled in the fake starlight coming through his window.

She can’t stop crying.

“...Did I hurt you?”

She shakes her head. “ _No_. No, you didn’t.” She moves close and wraps her hands around the back of his neck, pulling herself under his chin while she falls apart in his arms. “It’s all over. It’s ending and it’s over.”

“...Please don’t cry,” he murmurs, and kisses the top of her head. He has no idea what to do. He has no idea what to say. He loves her, he really does, but like everyone else, she’s going to leave. They are nineteen and the future they were promised has come to an abrupt and violent end. She told him she was going to leave and she wanted her first time to be with him, so that’s what they did. His mother and most of his sisters are at the hospital with his father. When Caboose told his mother he needed space, she let him go.

Maybe she knows what he did. Maybe she doesn’t.

Doesn’t really matter. He kisses Lizzie, tries to stop her from crying.

“It’s going to be okay.”

“It isn’t.”

She means the war. Her father is gone. She and her mother are leaving for Earth.

Caboose closes his eyes.

“I love you,” he says.

It doesn’t fix anything.

It doesn’t fix anything at all.

* * *

“I don’t understand.” Caboose’s mother grabs the chart from the nurse. “Where is the doctor?”

“Doctor Leigh is...gone, Mrs. Caboose.”

“What does that mean?”

The nurse sighs. “He left the colony.”

“Then get us another.”

The nurse shakes her head. “There are no more doctors, ma’am. Your best bet is trying to get back to Earth or a neighboring colony. They have several on Mars—”

“My husband is not going to _live_ long enough to make it to another colony.”

“...I can’t help you, Mrs. Caboose. I’m sorry.”

Caboose watches the woman leave. They’ve moved his father to their house because the hospital doesn’t have anyone to help them anymore. They’ve moved his father to their house because they know he’s going to die. The UNSC has decided to leave this colony. Most of the soldiers are gone, and Caboose...has no idea what to do.

His mother holds a hand over her mouth, takes a few deep breaths.

“I need to go talk to someone,” she says, and grabs her purse before checking her hair in the hallway mirror. “I’ll be back.”

“ _Mamá_.”

“I’ll be back,” she says again, and kisses the top of his head.

“I could do what they said.” He stands, grabbing her shoulder before she can go. “I could join—”

“You will not,” she says, wrenching out of his grip. “You will do no such thing.”

“But if it means you’re _safe_ —”

“ _Mijo_. What have I told you, over and over?”

Caboose looks at his feet. “I’m not a soldier.”

“You are _not_ a soldier. And you will _never_ be one.” She turns and leaves. The door slams behind her. Caboose looks at his hands and they are shaking. He hears his father coughing from the back and goes to him. Most of his sisters are avoiding it, and Marie has long since been moved off the planet, after the way the protest went down last week.

“Hey dad.”

“Ah, there he is.” His father reaches out and takes his hand. “Did you get bigger since yesterday?”

“Very funny.”

“Well. I try—” He cuts himself off with a brutal, hacking cough. “Miguel, I need you to promise me something.”

Caboose’s name is Michael. On all his documents, everything with his name on it, it’s _Michael J. Caboose._ He’s named after his grandfather, on his father’s side. _Miguel_ is special. _Miguel_ is his. _Miguel_ belongs to his family, to his mother and father. Owen called him Miguel. Lizzie called him Miguel. Jason Yee, the boy he loved when he was thirteen, who would kiss him after baseball practice, called him Miguel.

The people he loves call him Miguel. So when his father speaks his name, Caboose listens.

“Anything, dad.”

“You need to keep your mother and your sisters safe. You need to make sure they get away from here.” He grips Caboose’s hand tighter. “Do you understand? Whatever you have to do, _whatever_ it is. You do it. Promise me.”

Caboose nods. “Yeah. I promise.” He lifts his father’s hands to his lips and presses them to his knuckles. “I promise.”

* * *

“I asked you not to.”

Caboose reaches for his mother’s hand, but she pulls away.

“ _Mamá_.”

“I told you not to do that. I told you, again and again, to be a listener. Not a fighter. And now you’ll be a soldier. How do you think that makes me feel? It makes me feel like you’ve never listened. That you don’t need me.” She puts her face in her hands. “ _You’re breaking my heart_ ,” she murmurs, her voice thick with sadness.

“ _He asked me to._ ”

She looks up. “Don’t you _dare_ bring your father into this.” 

His father is dead. They cremated him, put him in a plain, silver urn and offered their condolences. 

“I only—”

“I can’t look at you. I _can’t._ ” She gets up and leaves him at their kitchen table.

 

* * *

 

“It’s not about my hair.”

Wash looks up from his book — he reads a lot of sci-fi, and all of it looks...bad. He marks his place and sets the book down in the grass. “...Okay.”

“It’s about...other things.”

Wash nods. “Are they things you’d like to talk about?” Caboose shakes his head. “That’s fine.”

Caboose goes and sits at his feet. “I’m...afraid. But I don’t know why.”

“Sometimes we just...are.”

“I hate it,” he spits, furious with himself, with his brain, with his emotions.

Wash sighs. “I know the feeling.”

“I wish it would stop.”

Wash shrugs and picks up his book again. “Change is scary, bud. Makes us feel weird things.” Before he starts reading again, though, he looks at Caboose and says, “But everything changes. It’s the one thing we can’t stop from happening.”

Caboose gets up and leaves Wash to his crappy books.

He hates it when everyone else is right.

 

* * *

 

**some time ago**

“ _Mijo._ Your hair…” His mother reaches up and touches the brutal buzz cut they’ve given him. “Why did you do this to us? Why did you do this to yourself?”

“They’re going to take you to Earth.”

“You won’t know where I am.”

“I will,” he insists. “They said when I was done, I could be with you.”

His mother worries her bottom lip between her teeth. “Oh, _Miguel_.”

“I _will_ come back. I’ll be fine.”

“You can’t promise that. How can I know this? How can I trust them?”

“ _Mamá_ …”

From behind him, a man clears his throat. “Time to go, private.”

“ _Mamá,_ I’ll come back. I’ll find you.”

She stands in their kitchen. The girls are standing in the hall behind her, and Caboose looks at them, desperate.

“I’ll find all of you,” he says.

“Private, let’s go.”

“ _Mamá_ —”

 _Please say something_ , he thinks. _Please say anything._

The man has a firm grip on his elbow, dragging him out of the house.

His mother says nothing.

And he wishes he’d struggled harder, and tried to hold her one last time.

* * *

“ _Miguel?_ ”

Caboose has his face in his hands, but he looks up now. He hates this armor, he hates what he’s done. He hates everything about this.

And then —

“Jason.”

Jason Yee. He’d loved Jason, years ago. They played baseball together, they held hands and Jason danced with him at their first winter formal in the seventh grade.

Jason sits next to him. “...They got you, too, huh?” Caboose nods. Jason sighs and they lean against one another as the ship sways back and forth in empty space.

“Man,” Jason says, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. “Things sure have changed, huh Miguel?”

Caboose works his mouth, tries to say something, _anything._ “I…”

The ship jolts. His head smacks against the metal wall and he sees stars.

 _Yeah_ , he thinks. _Things sure have changed._

 

* * *

 

“Alright,” Wash says. He cards his fingers through Caboose’s hair a few times, opens and closes the scissors. “Here we go.”

Caboose closes his eyes while Wash carefully trims his hair. They chat quietly, about Iris, about dinosaurs, about Freckles. They don’t talk about Church, and they don’t talk about what Caboose is really afraid of.

He could tell Wash about home. Wash has a family on Earth. Sisters he loves, parents he adores. Wash would probably really understand. Or at least, he would do his best.

Eventually, they fall into an easy silence. Tucker comes in and watches. When Wash is done, he steps back and says, “See? Not so bad.”

Caboose runs a hand through his hair as Tucker grins. “ _Nice_ ,” he says. “Lookin’ good, dude.”

Caboose smiles and goes upstairs to look at himself.

He’s...changed. There is grey in his hair, and he has an uneasy scar along his left cheek, others that mark his chest and stomach.

If his mother were here, would she recognize him? If Marie were here, would she know him? He’s not so different, really. Changed, yes, but Wash was right.

Everything changes.

It’s the one thing they can’t stop.

And so, if everything changes, that means him, too. He doesn’t know if they’ll be on Iris forever, or where their life will take him next. Right now, everything is still. Everything is quiet. Can’t last forever. _Won’t_ last forever.

He promised his mother he would find her. That he would survive war and everything else and he _has_. God, he’s done the best he could.

He promised her. And he’s going to make that right.

But, in the meantime — haircuts are good.

And, for right now, he is home.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @ weatheredlaw


End file.
